Từ chỉ chức danh thuộc hệ thống quản lý của công ty cổ phần trong tiếng anh và cách diễn đạt tương đương trong tiếng việt – nghiên cứu từ góc độ ngữ dụng học

Luận văn đã chỉ ra các từ chỉ chức danh thông dụng trong hệ thống quản lý của công ty cổ phần ở Mỹ và các chức danh tương đương trong tiếng Việt, đồng thời đưa ra một số đề xuất về cách diễn đạt tương đương trong tiếng Anh của một số từ chỉ chức danh thông dụng trong công ty cổ phần Việt Nam. Ngoài ra, luận văn cũng đã đưa ra những gợi ý thực tế cho lĩnh vực dịch thuật và giáo dục liên quan đến loại thuật ngữ này.

Secondly, I wish to thank all the lecturers in the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies,University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoifor their very useful and interesting lectures which have laid the foundation for my thesis.

I am also grateful to the librarians of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, whoenthusiastically helped me in finding necessary materials for my thesis

In addition, I am greatly indebted to my colleagues at Thai Nguyen University ofEconomics and Business Administration for sharing my duties and providing me withboth professional and emotional support while the work was being done

Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my family whoselove, care, support and encouragement enabled me to accomplish the study

Hanoi, June 2014

This study is an attempt to uncover the intrinsic meanings of commonly used Englishprofessional titles in the management system of American joint-stock companies andlook for their Vietnamese equivalents In the study, the researcher investigates someAmerican and Vietnamese companies’ organizational structures, as well as scans somejob suggested websites to figure out and make a list of the common professional titles inEnglish and Vietnamese language, centering upon the titles in the management system of

a company These jobs titles are then described, compared and contrasted in terms ofresponsibilities to look for the equivalents in the target language The results of the studypresent the Vietnamese equivalents of the investigated English professional titles Based

on those findings, the thesis provides some implications for translation and pedagogy.Last but not least, suggestions for further research are given as direction in the time tocome pursued by the author and/or other interested people

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

CA Contrastive Analysis

CAO Chief Accounting Officer

CCO Chief Customer Officer

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CFO Chief Financial Officer

CHRO Chief Human Resources Officer

CMO Chief Marketing Officer

COO Chief Operating Officer

CSO Chief Sales Officer

U.S The United States

Figure 9: Board of Directors in American companies……….… …20

Figure 10: Inner governance structure of Vietnamese joint-stock companies………… …21

Figure 11: Overview of the translation task……… …38

graduates have great chances to be employed by local companies which have increasingbusiness relationships with oversea ones, and even by multinational enterprises Hence,the ability to use English has become one of the preliminary requirements for a potentialcandidate.

Although Vietnam has been exposed to the market economy for a considerableperiod, there remains a lack of economic terminology system in general and Vietnameseequivalents of English occupational titles in particular Professional titles are amongthose English terms which are popularly used in both local and global companies Inaddition, an incorrect choice of business contacts due to the misunderstanding of their jobtitle’s responsibilities may negatively affect the viability of business cooperation As amatter of fact, working people need to have some knowledge about business titles

Being a teacher of English responsible for teaching English to students majored inmanagement studies, my job is to help students improve their language proficiency andprovide them with the language skills they need for their future career Thus, I feel theneed to pre-teach students the common job titles and people’s responsibilities when theyhold these posts

So far, few researchers have had interest in researching the job titles in theeconomic fields Therefore, to be able to provide learners with better understanding of theprofessional titles and their implied meanings, it is necessary for me to do a research into

the frequently used job titles and the responsibilities undertaken by people carrying those

titles

Throughout history, joint-stock companies, though might be denoted by differentnames, remain one of the most popular business models in many countries in the world aswell as in Vietnam In addition, the professional titles of this type of company can befound in many other business models Therefore, I decided to make an investigation intothe management system of the companies of this type

 Aims of the study

The primary purpose of the study is to look for the intrinsic meanings of thewords denoting common professional titles in management system of American joint-stock companies and their Vietnamese equivalents

2 What are the equivalents of these job titles in the Vietnamese language?

 Scopes of the study

The study investigates the management system of some large joint-stockcompanies in the United States (U.S.), looking for common professional titles and theirresponsibilities These business titles will then be compared to titles existing inmanagement systems of Vietnamese companies to find the equivalent terms inVietnamese language

It should be noted that the study only deals with linguistic aspect The term stock company” used in this study is an old word referring to the companies raisingcapital by issuing stocks and being owned by its shareholders It can be replaced by

“joint-“shareholding company” or “public company” in modern English

 Significance of the study

It is expected that the result of this research will help Vietnamese learners ofEnglish, especially students whose major is economics and business administration, havebetter understandings of the management system of joint stock companies and theresponsibilities of some popular positions in the company system Having a clear idea ofthe possible responsibilities of a title will facilitate students in the process of applying for

a job as well as being of great help when they have to find the right people to work with

in their future career

Also, the attempt to find and suggest equivalents of professional titles inVietnamese language will help limit the use of borrowing words, thus, partly contribute

to preserving the value of our national language

 Methods of the study

This research is a kind of qualitative research, in which the author integratesdifferent methods including listing, descriptive, comparative and contrastive to be able to

successfully answer the research questions By stating that the study is a kind ofpragmatic perspective, the author implies that she mainly focuses on working out theintrinsic meanings of the professional titles investigated

In terms of contrastive analysis, the researcher follows the principles suggested byJames C (1980), who stated that contrastive method involves two steps, namely,description and comparison Following this method, the thesis is carried out through twosteps:

 Step one: English and Vietnamese professional titles in are listed anddescribed

 Step two: English and Vietnamese professional titles are compared to find outthe equivalents

 Design of the study

The study has three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.The introduction presents the rationale for choosing the topic, aims, scope,method, significance, and design of the study

The development consists of four chapters Chapter one provides a review ofliterature on pragmatics, translation and contrastive analysis, which provides backgroundknowledge of some linguistic aspects that the researcher needs to consider when carryingout this research Chapter two is the illustration of Vietnamese and American joint-stockcompanies’ structures and description of popularly used professional titles Chapter threepresents the contrastive analysis of the English and Vietnamese professional titles.Chapter four discusses the pedagogical implications and suggestions for translating

professional titles into the target language

The conclusion provides the summary of what has been discussed in the study,states the limitations of the study and makes some suggestions for further research

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the theoretical foundation on which the study is based andset up It deals with theories of pragmatics, translation, equivalence in translation andcontrastive analysis

“pragmatics” has been redefined by many authors However, as Levinson (1986) stated,the modern usage of the term “pragmatics” is, indeed, an attribute to Morris’ theory

Bar-Hiller (1954) took the view that pragmatics is the study of languages, bothnatural and artificial, that contains indexical or deictic terms Carnap (in the late 1960s)referred to pragmatics as “those linguistic investigations that make necessary reference toaspects of the context” In Levinson’s view, pragmatics can be defined as “the study ofthose relations between language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in thestructure of a language” (Levinson, 1986:9) Considering the truth conditions, Gazdar(1979, cited in Levinson, 1986:12) proposed that pragmatics has those aspects ofmeaning of utterances which cannot be accounted for by straightforward reference to thetruth conditions of the sentences uttered

According to Mey (1993), “pragmatics” is the study of the use of language inhuman communication as determined by the conditions of society Stalnaker (1972, cited

in Horn, L.R and Ward, G., 2006) viewed pragmatics as the study of linguistic acts and

the contexts in which they are performed Similarly, Sperber and Wilson (1986, cited inKirsten and Williams, 1998) assumed that pragmatics is the study of the interpretation ofutterances.

Yule (1996) is also concerned with the interpretation of utterances in the Sperberand Wilson’s sense In his book, the writer gives a detailed description of what is called

“pragmatics” According to this author, the approach falls into four areas includingspeaker meaning, contextual meaning, listeners’ inference and the expression of relativedistance

As what people say or write is not always what they mean, pragmatic studies arecarried out to investigate the meaning communicated by a speaker or writer andinterpreted by a listener or reader In this case, the author defines pragmatics as “thestudy of speaker meaning”

Pragmatics is also concerned with the interpretation of what people mean in aparticular context and the influences of the context on what is uttered Hence, pragmatics

is the study of contextual meaning

In many circumstances, it is necessary for the listeners to make inferences aboutwhat is said in order to understand the speakers’ intended meaning Obviously, the unsaid

in these cases are part of what is communicated Thus, Yule (1996:3) refers to pragmatics

as “the study of how more gets communicated than is said”

As people living near each other usually have more shared experience than thosewho live far apart, the distance between the listeners and speakers significantly influenceshow much needs to be said In this case, pragmatic studies can be carried out to look forthe factor that determines the choice between the said and the unsaid Therefore,pragmatics is defined as the study of the expression of relative distance (Yule, 1996:3)

The author, then, concludes that pragmatics is “the study of the relationshipsbetween linguistic forms and the users of those forms” (Yule, 1996:3)

Yongping (2002), a well-known Chinese scholar, also explained the norm of

“pragmatics” in his book A Survey of Pragmatics As the author expressed, pragmatics is

a discipline which not only concerns the sense but also concerns the derivation of senseand the understanding of underlying meaning as its objects The aim of this discipline is

to decipher the negotiation and derivation of meaning in communication (Yongping, R.and Ziran, H., 2002).

Though a number of definitions about pragmatics have been published, thesedefinitions share the similar conclusion that pragmatics is the study of how language isused in particular situations to express a meaning that may not be obvious from the actualwords

In this study, the researcher stated that the thesis is towards the pragmaticperspective since her aim is to find the intrinsic meanings of frequently used professionaltitles to understand how they function in a company management system

 Theory of Translation

1.2.1 Definitions of translation

Translation has been approached by a number of linguists According to Catford(1965), translation is the replacement of a text in one language by an equivalent text inanother language In regards to various linguistic aspects, Nida (1969) states thattranslating is the process of finding closest natural equivalent to the message of thesource language not only in meaning but also in style

Considering translation as the preservation of meaning from one language into

another language, Newmark (1986:5) defines translation as the process of “rendering the

meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text” Thisconcept is shared by many researchers such as Meetham and Hudson (1972) and House

(1981) Meetham and Hudson (1972, cited in Bell, 1991:59) state that translation is the

replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of anequivalent text in a second language Similarly, House (1981) defines translation as thereplacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and pragmaticallyequivalent text in the target language

Although each linguist tries to explain the term “translation” in their own words,the common feature of the above definitions is that they emphasize the importance offinding equivalents with similar characteristics to the original by the choice ofappropriate lexicon and grammatical structures

 Equivalence in translation

In most definitions about translation, “equivalence” is mentioned as the key term.Catford (1965, cited in Van den Broek, 1978) defines the notion of “equivalence” bystating the conditions in which translation equivalence occurs According to this author,translation equivalence occurs when “source language and target language texts or itemsare related to (at least some of) the same relevant features of situation substance”.Similarly, Halverson (1997) also views equivalence in the relationship between twoentities, and the relationship is described as a similarity in terms of any of potentialqualities In general, proponents of equivalence-based theories of translation usuallydefine equivalence as the relationship between a source text and a target text that allowsthe target text to be considered as a translation of the source text Also, equivalencerelationships appear to hold between parts of source texts and parts of target texts Thesedefinitions are supposed to be problematic as what Pym (1992:37) has pointed out:equivalence is used to define translation, and translation, in turn, defines equivalence.The existence of this circularity explains why Snell-Hornby (1988) and many othertheorists who support him believe that translation equivalence is just an “imaginative”phenomenon

Although the concept of “equivalence” remains controversial, few attempts havebeen made to define equivalence out of its relationship with translation Yet, thoughbeing claimed to be irrelevant (Snell-Hornby,1988) or damaging (Gentlzer,1993) totranslation studies, equivalence is still variously regarded as a necessary condition fortranslation, an obstacle to progress in translation studies, and a useful category fordescribing translations

 Types of equivalence

Theorists have studied equivalence in relation to the translation process, using twoapproaches, namely quantitative and qualitative Concerning the quantitative approach,Kade (1968), and Hann (1992) divide equivalence into six categories as follows:

No Types of equivalence

relationship Description Explanation

1 One-to-one

equivalence

E V A single expression in the

target language (TL) for asingle source language (SL)

3 Many-to-one

equivalence

More than one SL expressionfor a single TL expression isused

6 Non-equivalence There is no TL expression for

an SL expression

Table 1: Types of equivalence relationship

There exist three subdivisions under qualitative approach, that is, function-based,meaning-based and form-based approach Nida, Koller and Baker are three linguisticresearchers who are credited as the founders of these above approaches with their majorworks of the time

In terms of function-based equivalence, Nida (1964) argues that there are two

different types of equivalence, including formal equivalence which is also referred to asformal correspondence (Nida & Taber, 1969) and dynamic equivalence While formalcorrespondence focuses attention on both form and content, dynamic equivalenceemphasizes the text readability

In light of meaning-based equivalence, Koller (1977) proposes five types of

equivalence including “denotative, connotative, text-formative, pragmatic and formal

equivalence” Denotative equivalence is described as extralinguistic content as it involves

“content invariance”, which means the SL and TL words refer to the same thing in the

real world Connotative equivalence is that SL and TL words should produce the same

communicative values in the mind of native speakers of the two languages Thisequivalence type involves lexical choices and can be referred to as “stylistic

equivalence” With regard to text-formative equivalence, the author means the SL and TL

words should use the same or similar text types in their respective languages By

pragmatic equivalence, Koller (1977) implies that the SL and TL words should have the

same effect on the reader or mainly aiming at the receiver, to whom the translation isdirected Pragmatic equivalence is, therefore, similar to Nida’s dynamic equivalence inthat both kinds concentrate on the communicative equivalence and are oriented to the

receiver of the text message The last type of equivalence, namely, formal equivalence is

referred to as “expressive equivalence”, which respects the form and aesthetics of thetext

With regard to form-based equivalence, Baker (1992) explores the notion of

equivalence at different levels in relation to the translation process This author proposesthat there are two types of equivalence including equivalence at word level andequivalence above word level In this author’s view, translation equivalence involvesgrammatical equivalence, textual equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence Baker notesthat a word sometimes carries different meanings in different languages, and relatesmeaning of words with morpheme Baker mentions problems at word level and above

word level before suggesting some strategies in dealing with them Grammatical equivalence refers to the diversity of grammatical categories across languages The

linguistic scholar affirms that grammatical rules across languages may differ, which lead

to some problems in finding a direct correspondence in the TL Textual equivalence

denotes the equivalence between a SL text and a TL text regarding information and

cohesion Finally, pragmatic equivalence touches on implication of the TL text The duty

of a translator is recognizing the implied meaning of SL text, and then reproducing it in away that readers of the TL can comprehend clearly without any misunderstanding interms of culture

 Contrastive Analysis

In the second half of the 20th century, the influence of the first language inlearning a second language was noted by different linguists such as Lado and Postman.According to Lado (1957), learners of a second language tend to transfer the forms andmeanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture– both productively and receptively Similarly, Postman (1971) states that learning is a

cumulative process, in which, the more knowledge and skills an individual acquires, themore likely it becomes that his new learning will be shaped by his past experiences andactivities “An adult rarely, if ever, learns anything completely new; however, unfamiliartask confronts him, the information and habits he has built up in the past will be his point

of departure Thus transfer of training from old to new situations is part and parcel ofmost, if not all, learning” (Postman, 1971) This theoretical assumption of behaviorismforms the basis of contrastive analysis

The term “contrastive analysis” (CA), also called “contrastive linguistics”, wassuggested by Whorf (1941) and was defined as “a sub discipline of linguistics concernedwith the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order todetermine both the differences and similarities between them” (Fisiak, 1981) From thedefinition, it can be said that according to this author, CA deals with both similarities anddifferences of the two languages investigated

Unlike Fisiak, James (1980) supposes that CA, as the term contrastive implies, is

more interested in the differences between languages than in their likenesses The scholarthen describes CA as “a linguistic enterprise aiming at producing inverted two-valuedtypologies (a CA is always concerned with a pair of languages), and founded on theassumption that languages can be compared” (James, 1980:3)

In the 1960s and early 1970s, contrastive analysis was used extensively in thefield of Second Language Acquisition Despite an array of criticisms, contrastive analysis

is not merely relevant for second language teaching and learning but it can also makeuseful contributions to machine translating and linguistics typology Chaturvedi (1973)suggests the following guiding principles for contrastive study: (1) To analyze the mothertongue and the target language independently and completely (2) To compare the twolanguages item-wise-item at all levels of their structure (3) To arrive at the categories ofa/ similar features b/ partially similar features c/ dissimilar features – for the targetlanguage (4) To arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing and target languageteaching in general Having similar view, James (1980:63) explained that executing CAinvolves two steps, namely, description and comparison, and the steps are taken in thatorder According to this author, although these two procedures cannot be said tocharacterize CA uniquely, it is the general principle in executing a CA

In this study, the researcher would like to follow the procedures suggested byJames (1980) as the framework and carry out the research through two steps:

 Step one: English and Vietnamese professional titles in are listed anddescribed

 Step two: English and Vietnamese professional titles are compared to find theequivalents

CHAPTER 2

A DESCRIPTION OF AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES

Chapter two provides a description of American and Vietnamese Joint-StockCompanies, including the definition of a joint-stock company and the illustration ofcommon company structures

 Definition of American and Vietnamese joint-stock companies

 American joint-stock companies

The use of the term joint-stock company or corporation has been common sincethe various Joint-stock Companies Acts were passed in the 1800s in England As defined

by the Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English (2009), a joint-stock companysimply means a company whose stock is owned jointly by its shareholders

More detailed definition can be found online at www.businessdictionary.com onwhich joint-stock company is stated to be the original name for a corporation with limitedliability for the shareholders Investors in an American joint-stock company receive stock

or shares which can be transferred, and can elect a board of directors to help them controlthe company operations With regards to American joint-stock company, Downes andGoodman (2006) described this type of company as a form of business organization thatcombines features of a corporation and a partnership A similar explanation can beretrieved from West’s Encyclopedia of American Law (2005) at www.encyclopedia.com

On this website, a joint-stock company is noted as an association engaged in a businessfor profit with ownership interests represented by shares of stock A joint-stock company

is financed with capital invested by the members or stockholders who receive transferableshares, or stock Although it shares majority features of a corporation, this type ofcompany is somehow similar to partnership because it also possesses the element ofpersonal liability where each member remains financially responsible for the acts of thecompany

Though joint-stock company has long history, this original name is not verycommonly used in the U.S at present According to Plessis & Grobfeld (2007),nowadays in the U.S, the UK and other Anglo-American jurisdictions, this type ofcompany takes the name of “public companies or corporations, publicly-tradedcompanies/corporations; public companies of corporations limited by shares, or publiclimited companies or corporations” In this study, the author will use these termsinterchangeably when referring to “joint-stock company”.

 Vietnamese joint-stock companies

Vietnam Enterprise Law (2005), Article 77 defines joint-stock companies asfollows:

Article 77: Joint-stock companies

A joint-stock company is an enterprise where:

a/ Its charter capital is divided into equal portions known as shares;

b/ Shareholders may be organizations and/or individuals; the minimum number of shareholders shall be three and shall not be restricted to any particular maximum number;

c/ Its shareholders shall be liable for debts and other property liabilities of such enterprise within the limit of the value of their capital contribution to the enterprise;

d/ Shareholders shall be entitled to freely transfer their shares, except the case specified

in Clause 3 of Article 81 or Clause 5 of Article 84 of this Law.

2 A joint-stock company shall have the legal person status from the date it is granted a business registration certificate.

3 A joint-stock company shall be entitled to issue securities of all kinds for capital mobilization.

(Vietnam Enterprise Law, 2005)According to the law, a Vietnamese joint-stock company is a businessentity owned by shareholders Shareowners of a Vietnamese joint stock company have

limited liability as just being liable for the company's debts by the nominal value of the

stock or shares held by them Shareholders (except for some special cases) have the right

to transfer their shares to others without any effects to the continued existence of thecompany

 Organizational structures of American and Vietnamese joint-stock

companies

 Organizational structures of some American companies

According to Tullis and Trappe (2004:4), most companies are made up of threegroups of people including shareholders who provide the capital, the management and theworkforce The management structure of a typical company is shown in the followingorganization chart

Figure 1: Company structure introduced by Tullis and Trappe (2004)

As can be seen from the above diagram and the explanation of the authors, at thetop of the company hierarchy is the Board of Directors This board is headed by theChairperson or President and is responsible for policy decisions and strategy (Tullis andTrappe, 2004) Managing Director (MD) or Chief Executive Officer (CEO) ranks second

in terms of authority The person who holds this position has overall responsibility for therunning of the business Companies also have senior and middle management to helphead the various departments or functions within the company Different departments thatcan be found in most companies are Marketing, Public Relations, InformationTechnology (IT), Personnel or Human Resources, Finance, Production, and Research andDevelopment (R&D) (Tullis and Trappe, 2004:4)

Similarly, Mackenzie (1997:11) stated that companies generally haveshareholders who provide capitals for the companies and are managed by the board ofdirectors (headed by a Chairman or President), who oversee operations and the managingdirector or CEO who takes responsibility for the day-to-day running of the company Insmaller companies, the roles of chairman and managing director are usually combined.Americans tend to use the term President rather than Chairman, and Chief ExecutiveOfficer (CEO) instead of Managing Director (MD) The CEO or MD is supported byvarious executive officers or vice-presidents (VP), each with clearly defined authorityand responsibility.

Shareholders

Board of Directors

Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer

Chairman or PresidentNon-Executive Directors

Human Resources DepartmentProduction Department

Figure 2: Company structure introduced by Mackenzie (1997)

According to the author, typically, the functional different departments in acompany are Production Department, Finance Department, Human ResourcesDepartment and Marketing Department Executive Directors, carrying the title of VP areresponsible for strategic decisions and operations of these functions while managers ofeach department are in charge of particular functions The functional departments aremade up of several sections as introduced below

1 Marketing Department consists of three sections, that is, sales, sales promotion andadvertising;

2 Human Resources Department is made up of of Recruiment and Personnel, andTraining section

3 Production Department is composed of five sections including Production Control,Purchasing, Manufacturing, Quality Control and Engineering Support

4 Finance Depatment con sists of Financial Management and Accounting

(Mackenzie, 1997:13)Regarding business structure, McKellen (1990:29) also introduced anorganization chart that is, as he stated, one of the most usual

Managing Director/ Chief Executive/ President

Departments each headed by a Director

OthersProductionR&D

PersonnelMarketing SalesFinance

Figure 3: Company structure introduced by McKellen (1990)

As illustrated by McKellen (1990:29), Managing Director, Chief Executive orPresident is the top position in company hierarchy Companies are managed by a group

of directors and managers Normally the directors are responsible for strategic planningand for making decisions while managers of the company departments are in charge ofday-to-day running and report to the directors

As the author explained, the key functional departments of a company includeFinance, Sales, Marketing (sometimes part of Sales), Production, Research andDevelopment (R&D) and Personnel Departments These are the most commondepartments, but some companies may have other departments as well (McKellen,1990:29)

A similar structure which is built based on the chain of command can be found in

the book Test your professional English – Management written by Sweeney (2002:66).

The author illustrated a typical model of a company management system in the followingdiagram

Sales Department Manager

Figure 4: Company structure introduced by Sweeney (2002)

According to Sweeney (2002:66), at the top of the company structure is the ChiefExecutive or Managing Director Production Director, Sales Director, MarketingDirector, Finance Director, Human Resources Director and Company Secretary belong tothe group of senior management system Middle management often has the title ofManagers who run the functional departments of a company.

Another company organizational chart which is introduced in the book Business Vocabulary in Use is that of Fun and Sun Holidays (Mascull, 2002:26) The company has

a similar structure to that of those businesses previously discussed

ChairpersonChief executive/ managing director

Figure 5: Company structure introduced by Mascull (2002)

As shown in the organigram, the non-executive directors of the company areChairman or Chairwoman and Chief Executive or Managing Director Senior executives,also referred to as top executives or executive directors include Chief Financial Officer orFinance Director, Marketing Director, Human Resources Director, IT Director andResearch Director Those senior managers have authority over middle managers such asAccount Department Manager who is supervised by Finance Director, Sales Manager andCustomer Services Manager who are supervised by Marketing Director As there is aclear chain of command running down the pyramid, the supervisor of a manager to whom

he or she reports can be called his or her line manager

 Organizational structures of some Vietnamese companies

As stated in Vietnam Enterprise Law (2005, Article 95) the organizationalstructure of the management of a joint-stock company comprises “Đại hội đồng cổ đông”,

“Hội đồng quản trị”, “Giám đốc” or “Tổng Giám đốc” “Chủ tịch Hội đồng quản trị” –the highest position in “Hội đồng quản trị”, “Giám đốc” or “Tổng Giám đốc” may be therepresentative at law for the company For a company with more than elevenshareholders being individuals or with a shareholder being an organization holding morethan 50% of total shares, it needs to have “Ban kiểm soát” The other positions in themanagement system of a company depend on its unique features and conform to thecompany’s own regulations

Below are the organizational structures of some Vietnamese joint-stockcompanies

The first company to be introduced is Bình Minh Plastic Joint-stock Company,one of the most respected manufacturing companies operating in plastic industry inVietnam Established in 1977 after the merger of two business enterprises, the companyhas achieved an array of success to become a leader in Vietnamese market for plasticproducts Since the company plays the role of both a manufacturer and a trader, the

organizational system of the company can be considered typical as it is made up ofvarious departments that a company may have.

Trưởng ban kiểm soátTrưởng phòng quản trị hành chính

Trưởng phòng đảm bảo chất lượng (QA)

Chủ tịch Hội đồng quản trịTrưởng phòng kinh doanh

Trưởng phòng đầu tư nghiên cứu và phát triển (R&D)

Kế toán trưởng- Trưởng phòng tài chính kế toán

Trưởng phòng Nhân sự

Figure 6: Structure of Bình Minh Plastics Joint-stock Company

The above diagram illustrates the structure of the management system of BìnhMinh Plastics Joint-stock Company, in which, at the top of the company hierarchy is thehead of “Hội đồng quản trị”, who is denoted as “Chủ tịch hội đồng quản trị” “Tổng giám

đốc” is in the second authoritative position, who receives help from two “Phó tổng giámđốc”, one of whom is responsible for marketing (“Phó tổng giám đốc kinh doanh”) andthe other is in charge of technological problems (Phó tổng giám đốc kỹ thuật) Thefunctional departments of the company are “Phòng kinh doanh”, “Phòng tiếp thị”,

“Phòng quản trị hành chính”, “Phòng nhân sự”, “Phòng tài chính kế toán”, “Phòng đầu tưnghiên cứu và phát triển”, “Phòng đảm bảo chất lượng” The head of a department of thecompany is denoted as “Trưởng phòng” In the company, the leader of “Phòng tài chính

kế toán” also serves as “Kế toán trưởng” In addition, the company has two “Giám đốcnhà máy” whose responsibility is to direct and control the operation of the company’sfactories

Another company to be introduced is Lạc Hồng, a popular companies operating inconstruction field in Vietnam Conforming to Vietnam Enterprise Law (2005), thecompany is headed by “Đại hội đồng cổ đông”, “Hội đồng quản trị”, “Tổng giám đốc”and “Phó tổng giám đốc” The functional departments of the companies consist of

“Phòng vật tư”, “Phòng quản lý chất lượng và thanh quyết toán”, “Phòng tổ chức hànhchính”, “Phòng tài chính kế toán”, “Phòng dự án”, “Phòng Marketing” In addition, thecompany has “Phòng kinh doanh nhà và xuất nhập khẩu”, “Phòng đầu tư phát triển nhà

và đô thị” and “Phòng tư vấn thiết kế” to comply with its field of operation The personwho is in charge of each department in the company is denoted as “Trưởng phòng”

Đại hội đồng cổ đông

Ban kiểm soátHội đồng quản trị

Tổng giám đốc

Trưởng phòng Dự án

Trưởng phòng quản lý chất lượng

Trưởng phòng Vật tư

Trưởng phòng tổ chức hành chính

Trưởng phòng Tư vấn-thiết kế

Trưởng phòng KD nhà – Xuất nhập khẩu

Phó tổng giám đốcPhó tổng giám đốc

Phó tổng giám đốc

Phó tổng giám đốc

Trưởng phòng PR-Marketing

Trưởng phòng Đầu tư phát triển nhà và Đô thị

Kế toán trưởng – Trưởng phòng tài chính-kế toán

Figure 7: Structure of Lạc Hồng Joint-stock Company

A simpler company structure can be found in BSC Joint-stock Company, whichdoes not comprise “Ban kiểm soát” and “Phó giám đốc” in its management system Thecompany only has “Hội đồng quản trị” which is governed by “Chủ tịch”, “Giám đốc”who directs the functional departments which are “Phòng kinh doanh”, “Phòng nhân sự”,

“Phòng tài chính kế toán”, “Phòng kỹ thuật công nghệ” and “Phòng Marketing” Thiscompany organization is common for companies with smaller size than the previouslyintroduced ones

Hội đồng quản trị

Giám đốc

Trưởng phòng kỹ thuật công nghệ

Trưởng phòng marketingTrưởng phòng nhân sự

Trưởng phòng tài chính kế toán

Trưởng phòng Kinh doanh

Figure 8: Structure of BSC Joint-stock Company

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From the company structures illustrated above, it can be seen that Americanshareholding companies’ management system is characterized by one single board whichcomprises both executive and non-executives directors, being responsible for all aspects

of the company’s activities and working to achieve the same ends In other words, thisunitary tier board model allocates both supervisory and managerial functions to the board

of directors The shareholders elect the directors to the board at the company’s annualgeneral meeting An illustration of the American board of directors can be found below

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